


Synergy II: Curse of Fire

by bttrmllw



Series: Synergy-verse [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Mulan (1998) Fusion, Angst, BAMF Haruno Sakura, Blood and Violence, F/F, F/M, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Mulan (1998) References, Multi, Post-War, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 01:55:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29056269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bttrmllw/pseuds/bttrmllw
Summary: AU. He is cursed and resigned to his fate. She is the nuisance who won’t let him surrender. In which history, hopefully, does not repeat itself. (Sequel to Synergy.)
Relationships: Haruno Sakura/Uchiha Sasuke, Hatake Kakashi/Uchiha Itachi (minor), Hatake Kakashi/Umino Iruka (minor), Hoozuki Suigetsu/Yamanaka Ino/Karin (minor), Shiranui Genma/Shizune (minor)
Series: Synergy-verse [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2117334
Comments: 52
Kudos: 49





	1. saudade

**Author's Note:**

> IM BACK WITH A SEQUEL WHADDUP. if you haven’t read [Synergy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24791002/chapters/59951578) i would advise you to do that first or else you might be a bit lost.
> 
> i’ve just been dying to get this off the ground. that being said, it’ll take me much longer between chapters to update synergy 2 than it took me to update synergy considering i have just finally finished plotting this sequel in terms of main events (and i have no guidelines from mulan this time *wheeze* this is all 100% my brain flailing around). i anticipate this being much shorter than synergy ~~but who knows how well that’ll go~~. 
> 
> **edit:** a million thanks to ThePeriwinklePrincess and Agentxyz for offering to beta! (:

> _“Amazing!” the girl gushes, studying the array of butterflies expertly pinned against a tree trunk._
> 
> _At her side, the older of the two brothers tilts his head, eyes narrowing on a single butterfly that manages to escape his senbon. Not good enough._
> 
> _It is Asura who champions him, ever the supportive younger sibling: “Indra-nii-san is the best!” the brunet exclaims. He is eight and looks up to Indra, afterall._
> 
> _The girl blushes prettily, gaze fluttering to the taller boy. “He’s amazing,” she concedes._
> 
> _Indra does not acknowledge their praise, focused entirely on the butterfly he missed._
> 
> _“Aa,” Asura goes on, “it’s all in his eyes!” He presses a finger beneath one of his own eyes, widening it for emphasis. “They’re special! For instance: he can see straight through your kimono—“_
> 
> _The girl shrieks and before Indra can explain that his idiot younger brother is absolutely wrong, the young girl slaps him._

* * *

**_eighteen months post war_ **

—

Red.

Everything is always fucking red.

Wild eyes jump around, manic in their observation. He has been in this world many times before but his introduction to it remains with him and his chest seizes at the reminder: 

The pain, the neverending horror, the _shock_.

Uchiha Sasuke braces himself against the onslaught of memories but relentlessly they crash, wearing down the already tenuous foundation he has built along the shore of what is left of his family’s legacy. 

_“Focus, Sasuke!”_ demands the silver-haired jounin standing before him. Hatake Kakashi appears as cool and detached as ever. Hands in pockets, he regards the Major General currently tied to the beam. There are a handful of Hatake Kakashi in this black and red world. Unlike the very first time Sasuke spent in this genjutsu, he is not being tortured. 

Even so the pain lingers, phantom and intangible yet impossible to dismiss. It grows and warps and inhabits the deepest crevices of his mind, places Uchiha Sasuke is not ready to revisit. 

He shuts his eyes against the memory of steel sliding through him, of the sound of his innards squelching, the feel of blood dripping—

 _“Sasuke!”_ Kakashi barks. (He sees the resolve leave the Uchiha’s face.) _“You can do this!”_

Sasuke’s eyes snap open, Mangekyou rising to the surface. Kakashi hesitates, frozen to the spot as the world drenched in nightmares and blood fades away.

The Major General drops to his knees, no longer restrained (no longer frozen in fear, unable to breathe), no longer at the mercy of the _Tsukuyomi_. His shoulders shake, chest heaves; his fingers dig into the earth and he roots himself in the feel of the dirt, the wetness of the grass, the cool breeze against his face.

“Well done,” the Copy-Nin congratulates.

Sasuke manages a scathing glare. “Don’t patronize me,” he deadpans before tipping onto his back to stare at the sky. He greedily takes in the blues and whites. Anything other than the shades of red that reside behind his eyelids.

Without prompting, Kakashi follows suit. 

They recline, spread-eagle on the hill top, watching clouds go by. Sasuke is reminded of once upon a time long ago when he was but a genin and his silver-haired captain worked him to the bone until genin-Sasuke collapsed, unable to move from the ground. It occurs to him: Hatake Kakashi has not changed one bit.

“I wasn’t,” Kakashi declares. “Until you, I hadn’t realized it was even possible to escape the _Tsukuyomi._ You’re getting quicker.”

Sasuke contemplates this admission and its silent implications: there are no other Uchiha to help guide him, no one else able to answer questions, to reveal to them the boundaries and limits of the Sharingan.

Kakashi interrupts: “You and Sakura are doing well.” More an observation (accusation) than a question. 

The sun blazes overhead, eaves-drops—Sasuke can feel it burning his ears. He snorts, closes his eyes. “Did you have any doubt?”

(Truth is, Kakashi did not. But Uchiha Sasuke absolutely did. _Does,_ if he’s being entirely honest—and no he most certainly is not because though many things have changed and he has come a long way in recognizing, accepting, and returning Haruno Sakura’s love, he is still Uchiha Sasuke and he has a reputation to uphold, thank-you-very-much.)

Kakashi just hums and Sasuke is not sure why that response irritates him. 

It’s been a year since he’s asked Sakura to be his captain, his second-in-command; a year of traveling just them together. A year wherein they fall into each other repeatedly, acquainting and reacquainting their bodies, their moods, their ticks. They have grown together; somehow she has bloomed even fiercer, prouder, _brighter_ despite being in his shadow. He wonders if she’d flourish even more if she was at someone else’s side, someone whose roots have not rotted.

He can’t say it’s been easy or peaceful, the ramifications of the war have left a vast hole in his life, but he does not think he would have survived any of it if not for her.

He opens his eyes, watches the sun carve around a passing cloud.

Haruno Sakura is a bright, burning star, warmth that fuels his Uchiha fire when there are no Uchiha shinobi left. She is the sun and he is the moon and he has known this perhaps from the very first times they trained beneath both.

“Have you ever—“ he begins before his mind can catch up to his tongue.

“Hmm?” the Copy-Nin intones, visible eye sliding to study his former pupil.

Sasuke looks away (and appears every bit the twenty year old boy he is, Kakashi thinks), mutters, “Nevermind.” He can _feel_ the older man’s gaze on him.

Kakashi takes pity: “She’s not a jewelry kind of person, is she?”

The Uchiha hesitates, glances at him with a scowl. “...No.”

Kakashi tips his head up and tugs his mask down, welcoming the warmth of the summer. “You know she couldn’t care less how you do it.” 

(Sasuke has seen the Copy-Nin’s face many times before but he doubts he will ever get used to how easily Kakashi reveals it around him as of late. He supposes the only person accustomed to it was Itachi. His gut twists at the thought.)

Sasuke’s scowl deepens. “I know that.” Sakura would be happy if they simply made it official in any nondescript random village. But she _deserves better_. “I’d care,” he says simply.

Kakashi chuckles. “Sometimes I forget how much you’ve grown.”

Sasuke meets his stare, arches a single aristocratic brow and calls his Mangekyou to the surface. “Should I remind you?”

The silver-haired captain scoffs, sits up. “Are you trying to put me out of commision?” he drawls, rolling his still injured shoulder. “Let’s call it a day. I can’t carry on for hours on end like I used to. Besides, don’t you think it’s about time we started heading home?”

Sasuke shrugs. “You go on ahead.”

After Kakashi leaves in a puff of smoke, the Uchiha studies the clouds encased in gold. Sasuke thinks about _home_ and how he has never felt as if he was away from it despite only returning to Konoha a week ago.

* * *

She knows that signature.

Haruno Sakura suppresses a roll of her eyes, setting down the document in her hands. She does not turn around—doesn’t need to.

“You’ve done it again, haven’t you? Idiot.”

She can _hear_ his pout: “What ever happened to respecting your teacher?”

Sakura groans, stands from her desk and swivels in time to catch the Copy-Nin stepping down from her sill. “Tsunade-sama was my teacher,” she says without missing a beat. 

“Your elders, then,” the silver-haired man grumbles.

Haruno Sakura tutts. “You’re hardly that old,” she declares, green eyes narrowing in her assessment. One glance at him and she sighs, gestures for him to come closer so she can take a look at his eye. 

He does so without hesitation, walks right into her waiting palm (and Sakura reflects at the ease with which he trusts her.) 

She can tell by the tightness in his visible eye that his Sharingan hurts. He’s been using it too much to help train Sasuke. When Sakura tells him this, the Copy-Nin fixes his normal eye on her, drags it away from admiring the purple diamond on her forehead: 

“Didn’t you know?” he responds wryly, “A teacher’s job is never done.”

* * *

The wind sifts through the trees, through his hair. Charcoal eyes behold the sea of grass and wildflowers. He smells summer in the hint of smoke in the air from bar-be-cue, in the freshly tilled training grounds ready for genin-hopefuls to tear apart, in the scent of gardenias underneath it all fighting for dominance in his olfactory. 

“It’s better,” Sasuke says quietly. “Konoha.”

Birds fly overhead, a flock, their shadows passing across the expanse of greens.

He sits cross-legged on the ground, dark eyes unfocused as he relays his most recent news:

“We’ve got four platoons now. With full-fledged chuunin. I made Kakashi a general.

“Women are allowed to be shinobi. I know I told you that before, but we’ve got quite a number. 

“Sakura is a Sannin. I know you’d be so proud of her. I’m proud of her. She’s wasting away as my second. She could lead her own squad.

“I’m getting better with the Mangekyou—” The words die on his throat; his voice frays. Sakura once told him it would get easier. Privately, Uchiha Sasuke calls her a liar. She’s good at that, isn’t she? Lying.

(Inside, he reprimands himself for lashing out at her. He knows why she lied, knows she is perhaps the single good thing left in his life—he knows it is unfair to be angry or resentful. It’s not her he is mad at. Abstractly, he knows all of this but Uchiha Sasuke is not without his flaws and perhaps his most glaring one of all is shouldering the burdens of his people. He has never been good at dousing flames, only feeding them.)

Sasuke clears his throat, tries again. “I’m going to ask her to marry me,” he whispers, allowing his gaze to fall onto the headstone. With calloused fingers he traces and retraces the characters that make up his brother’s name. “I wish you were here to ask me what took me so long. I wish you were here to tell me she could do much better. Or just to...congratulate me or—or—“

A sigh leaves him, fractured, sharp. 

“I wish you were here,” Sasuke murmurs, hand leaving the cool stone, dropping from the grooves of characters he has memorized against his fingertips. 

* * *

“So how’s he doing?” Sakura asks, chakra gently prodding into her patient’s ocular nerve.

He tenses then relaxes at her touch. “Well.” 

She snorts. Hatake Kakashi, always a man of few words; and Uchiha Sasuke: “Always a prodigy, hmm?”

“I may be mistaken,” Kakashi muses, “but weren’t you?” His dark eye finds the mark on her forehead.

Sakura huffs. “Not nearly. Seems to be a clan thing and if you recall I don’t belong to one.”

Kakashi shrugs, nonchalant. “Perhaps not yet.”

There is intent behind those words and Sakura hesitates. She peers into his face, demanding an explanation, but Kakashi’s visible eye crinkles in amusement.

Her mouth parts, a retort ready on her tongue like kunai in hand, but someone at her door interrupts:

“Forehead! Room 206–something’s wrong!”

* * *

Sasuke closes his eyes, uttering a silent prayer for Itachi to find peace, before preparing to stand. When he catches sight of the soil beneath his sandaled feet, he pauses. The Uchiha frowns, pressing an experimental finger into the earth. It is fresh. He scoots back, studying the grave properly.

The soil here has been freshly matted.

It is summer in Konoha. There has not been any rain.

Dark eyes bleed to Sharingan red, the tomoe of his Mangekyou analyze the grave.

He notices remnants of chakra—fingerprints all over the tombstone. He sees chakra footprints, at least three separate people, around the site like flares in the sky.

He does not recognize any of the signatures.

* * *

Room 206.

Uchiha Yui.

A young civilian of the Uchiha line who has gone into labor. She is a sweet girl, with large eyes that somehow look towards the potential for a happy future rather than the bloody remains of her clan’s history. 

Uchiha Yui is kind and temperate, Sakura has never seen her so much as frown.

But when Sakura arrives at the room, Yui is _hysterical_.

Nurses are aghast around her, attempting to soothe the soon-to-be mother.

“He’s coming!” Yui shrills, thrashing in her bed, fingers clawing against the sheets. The nurses assure her that her baby is not coming yet, she is not dilated enough for that but Yui shakes her head, an animal trapped in a corner. “He's coming, he’s coming, he’s coming—” she repeats, voice hoarse from screaming until she falls silent. She mouths the phrase over and over again. A twisted mantra, a malediction. When her voice returns, raw and desperate and manic, she continues: “He’s coming to finish what he started!”

Sakura stands before the young woman, catches her wrists to subdue her while the nurses restrain her legs. “Who?” the medic asks in as soothing a voice as she can muster. “Yui, _who’s_ coming?”

* * *

He’s crazy.

He is certifiably crazy.

Sasuke has heard the rumors: His whole clan is mad, all the shinobi at least. Uchiha are ruled by passion—love bleeds into hatred, breeds insanity.

He’s crazy. _He’s crazy._

And yet

Uchiha Sasuke cannot shake the feeling that _something is wrong_ here. He needs proof. He needs tangible proof that everything is as it should be. If anyone were around, he would be unable to explain the logic behind his actions because _there is none_. 

Call it a gut feeling. A sixth sense.

 _This is crazy_ , he thinks as he digs up his brother’s grave. His hands move of their own accord, his muscles ignoring the command from his brain that tells him: _S_ _top this is madness what are you doing what are you expecting to find_.

The earth is damp between the grooves of his hands, beneath his nails, as he digs like an animal until he reaches the coffin. It does not take him long to free it from the ground. Sasuke stares at it. One breath. Two.

_(He’s crazy.)_

A final, slow inhale

_(He’s fucking crazy.)_

and he pops the coffin open.

* * *

When Yui meets her eyes it is not as a young pregnant woman, but that of someone who has seen death, someone who has seen hatred and terror. Yui _trembles_ in Sakura’s hold, practically convulsing when she sobs:

_“Uchiha Indra.”_

* * *

  
It is empty.

.

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> saudade **;** _deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for an absent something or someone that one cares for and/or loves_
> 
> let me first say that i have not watched all of shippuden and i am unfamiliar with everything that goes on in that time and with indra and asura (ashura?) but i mean. this whole thing is another universe anyways right? i’m still getting a feel for this fic, it’s got a very different premise than the first, after all.
> 
> we’ll be catching up with the rest of the cast soon namely: how’s kakashi holding up? how’s nejiten? what’s up with naruhina? what’s our throuple up to? etc etc. but for now, we’ve jumped right into the conflict as i love to do (:
> 
> that being said, the [Training Days](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28985223/chapters/71132325) one-shot series has also been posted! i’ll likely update that much more frequently than this sequel. also this has not been beta-ed, but future chapters should be. thanks for reading you lovely people you <3


	2. marcid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  ***** a thousand thank yous to my betas: _ThePeriwinklePrincess_ and _Agentxyz_ , without whom this chapter would be trash. (:
> 
>  ***** this fic is looking to be around 8-10 chapters long, but we’ll see if I stay true to that. who knows what scenes i’ll decide to include that push it longer. i certainly don’t. i’m hoping to get chapters out at _least_ once a month, but closer to every two weeks if my brain allows it~
> 
>  ***** i have a twitter now! ~~i, uh, don’t know how to use it.~~ i’ll be posting snippets of future chapters/fics over there if you’re interested: @bttrmllw

The scent of soil clings to his clothes, the burning sun reddens his skin. Uchiha Sasuke does not feel any of these things, only stubborn resolve as he storms through the Hokage Tower. If passersby greet him, he does not notice, dark eyes seeing nothing but the _empty empty empty_ grave in his mind.

He throws open the door to the Hokage’s office, ignoring the startled guard who tries to stop his advance.

Tsunade blinks at the intrusion. She has warmed up to him, he knows, but not enough to allow this sort of behavior. “What is it?” she barks.

Sasuke steps in and slams the door behind him. Words rise to the back of his throat—explanations swathed in rage—but what comes tumbling out his mouth is “I have to leave.”

The blonde arches an elegant brow. “You have to leave,” she echoes, lowering the open scroll in her hands.

Sasuke scowls. “Yes.”

“Why?”

And here it is, the catalyst of his madness: “My brother’s body. It’s gone.”

“Gone,” Tsunade deadpans, disbelief writ from the slight lift of manicured brows to carefully steepled hands.

 _“Gone,”_ Sasuke repeats, knowing he should say more, _knowing_ that this is not enough of a reason— _isn’t_ a reason at all. But his mind is moving a mile a minute and his tongue simply cannot figure out what it is he wants to say, should say. 

Tsunade, however, can be patient. She tips her head and waits.

The Uchiha inhales. “His body was taken from his grave.”

He expects her to gasp. To be furious. To _react_.

But the woman only frowns, pensive. “I’m surprised this didn’t occur earlier,” Tsunade mumbles behind her knuckles. “As despicable as it is, there are people desperate for kekkei genkai.”

“You think they did this for the Sharingan?” Sasuke growls, hands curling into fists at his sides.

“I can’t know for certain,” the blonde concedes, “but it is my best guess.” With a sigh she unclasps her hands, reaches for a blank scroll, and unfurls it with a flourish. “I will get a team together to—”

“Why Itachi?” Sasuke cuts in.

Tsunade blinks, glances up from the ink-dappled brush in her hand. 

“If it’s the Sharingan they want, then why Itachi?” he demands. “Why not anyone else?” Sasuke recognizes the barely restrained hysteria in his voice and tries his best to reign it in. _There are entire squads of dead Uchiha shinobi_ , he wants to add, but he refrains because it is still too fresh, too raw. How much time needs to pass until his kinsmen’s blood finally dries, until the wound finally heals?

Tsunade breathes in through her nose. “Perhaps,” she answers slowly, eyes studying her visitor’s face, “they want his Mangekyou Sharingan. Only one other Uchiha has unlocked it and his body is...”

She does not need to go on, Sasuke is well aware of the divide between the Senju and the Uchiha and all that has come after.

* * *

A pensive frown furrows petal-soft brows. “Uchiha Indra?” Sakura replies, the name foreign on her tongue. “Who’s this Indra? Another Uchiha civilian?”

Yui shakes her head, catches the medic’s shoulders. “No—Indra is the father of the Uchiha clan.”

“I think she means Otsutsuki,” pipes up an Uchiha nurse from Yui’s other side. “Otsutsuki Indra.” She says the name in quiet reverence.

“Otsutsuki?” Sakura repeats, letting the syllables bounce across her tongue. 

Yui’s eyes glaze over, a sheet of dark marble. Sakura can see her own reflection in the blankness of the pregnant woman’s eyes. 

When Yui speaks again, her voice is lower, a rasp: _“The Uchiha began with Indra and only with Indra will they end—”_

Sakura catches her body as she slumps over, unconscious.

* * *

“There were unfamiliar chakra signatures at the grave site,” Sasuke grits out. Darkness swirls behind his eyes, a storm raging against fragile glass, threatening to shatter. “I’m going to track down the culprits.”

Tsunade regards him with maddening control. “You’re going?”

Rage distorts his features. “Yes.”

The Rokudaime leans back in her seat. “And you are telling me this because?”

Sasuke tenses. His jaw locks. To any onlooker he simply appears hesitant to divulge his secrets, but Tsunade has spent time observing this man—boy, really—and she knows what he looks like when he’s guilty, when he’s ashamed.

“Ah, I see,” Tsunade nods, inclining her head to the side in silent accusation. “You’re not telling me. You’re hoping I’ll tell _Sakura.”_

Sasuke has the decency to look conflicted, dark eyes drifting to the side. Even so, he does not deny it. “I can’t involve her in this.”

“Don’t you think that should be her decision?” Tsunade drawls.

A beat passes wherein he has the _gall_ to pretend to think about it, then: “No.”

The blonde snorts, places her elbows on the desk before her and takes mental stock of the boy who was thrust into war and responsibility far too soon. Can she blame him for his immaturity? How much of his terrible decision-making is due to his trauma and how much of it is due to lack of experience? _And how much of it is because he is an idiot?_

“Okay. So as her general,“ Tsunade reasons, “why don’t you order her to stay behind and see how that goes?”

His eye twitches and it almost makes her smirk. Almost.

“You’re not going,” she orders.

The Uchiha rises to the bait. “He’s _my_ brother—“

“Tsuna.”

They glance to the window where Jiraiya perches on the sill, looking far more serious than either Sasuke or Tsunade have ever seen. 

Tsunade blinks at his interruption. “What is it?” she demands, turning her chair so as to face him.

“Sorry to cut in,” Jiraiya apologizes as he steps into her office, gaze drifting to the Uchiha in acknowledgement. His words, however, are directed at the hokage: “But there has been a development.”

Tsunade stiffens in her seat, does not even spare the dark-haired brat a glance when she says “Uchiha, we will continue our discussion after I have received intel on this matter.”

She feels his glare burn holes into the back of her head.

“I will send a team to dig a little deeper. You are dismissed, General,” the blonde barks. No room for argument.

Sasuke’s grumbled _‘Major General’_ manages to make her grin.

Only when the door clicks shut does she sigh. “Is this about…?”

Jiraiya’s eyes harden as he confirms Tsunade’s fears: “Akatsuki.”

* * *

If Sasuke is surprised to see his former captain outside the door, he does not show it. He intends to stalk past the silver-haired jounin without so much as a glance, but Kakashi’s strained voice stops him in his tracks: 

“You think you are the only one who cared for Itachi?”

All ire melts from his bones, frees his limbs from control so that for the first time since Sasuke left his brother’s grave he can breathe. The fists at his side relax and he ignores the sting of his nails breaking the skin of his palms.

Even so, Sasuke does not answer, only pausing enough to fall into step with his mentor.

The Copy-Nin walks with him, hands in pockets, unassuming as ever. “You’re being too hasty,” he says quietly as they walk down the hall. “We need to look into this first. If you act now whoever is behind this will know you are on their tail—”

How Kakashi can maintain discretion, Sasuke will never know. “They _took_ his—”

“Losing your temper might be exactly what these people want.”

The Uchiha stops, turns his head to glare at the infuriating masked face that dares to lecture him.

Kakashi does not relent. “As Tsunade-sama said, wait for more information.”

“And what am I supposed to do until then?” Sasuke grouses, ever impatient.

The Copy-Nin shrugs, feigning disinterest. But Sasuke knows this is a façade and he silently reprimands himself for being so _selfish._

“Focus on happier things,” the silver-haired general answers, blithe in a way that only Kakashi can pretend to be.

_(“I would follow you to the ends of the earth, Uchiha Sasuke.”)_

“I can’t,” Sasuke answers, throat tight. “Not until this is resolved.” 

“This path you’re considering—it’s paved in regret,” Kakashi entreats. “It will never end. You will never find peace if you keep running towards darkness.”

Sasuke only scoffs and turns away. “It’s what our eyes are meant to do, isn’t it? Navigate the dark?”

* * *

_Otsutsuki Indra._

“What does that mean?” Sakura demands, gaze finding the Uchiha nurse—Hisa, she recalls.

Hisa falters for a moment before snapping back and helping settle Yui into her bed. “It comes from legend,” the young woman explains, hands quickly working to take Yui’s vitals. “Essentially it means the Uchiha will never end because the only way for that to happen would be by our ancestor’s will.”

Things settle down now that Yui is no longer frantic, though she has been given a mild sedative just in case.

Even long after the episode, Sakura cannot stop mulling over Hisa’s words.

Ino and Shizune chalk it up to pregnancy hormones, but Sakura is skeptical. Uchiha Yui is a gentle soul. She apologized profusely for her own labor as it meant taking up a hospital bed. She is the sort to insist that any and all flowers delivered to her be shared with other patients instead.

Pregnancy hormones alone would not cause this hysteria.

Sakura leans back against the elevator wall, staring absently at the clipboard in her hands. She chews at the tip of her pen, sifting through her memories for the name: Otsutsuki Indra. Nothing comes up.

The elevator dings and she blinks from her thoughts, head lifting as the doors part.

Time to hit the library.

* * *

  
  
It is their first dinner together since Sasuke and Sakura took off a year prior.

The restaurant is large, bustling. Sasuke sits in the booth with Kakashi; Genma and Suigetsu are across the way. Genma’s knees are braced on the table, balancing his chair on its back legs. Suigetsu waves his chopsticks in the brunet’s face as they argue about something wildly inappropriate causing many patrons to glance their way, half in interest and half in disgust.

It is when Genma smacks Suigetsu’s chopsticks out of the way with his own and the latter says something about crossing swords that Sasuke comes to the realization that he has _missed these morons._

As annoying as they are, there is a distinct warmth that inhabits a part of his chest—these men are his mentors, his brothers, his best friends. He trusts them with his life, and they trust him with theirs, and perhaps _perhapsperhapsperhaps_ Uchiha Sasuke does not need to navigate the dark alone? These men will come with him, they will anchor him to reality, to a place he knows he can be happy even when all he knows is pain, even when all he sees is blood—

A hand on his shoulder brings him to the present and he knows the feel of it, the length of her fingers, the width of her palm, the precise heat of it as it squeezes once, twice, before sliding up the side of his neck and into his hair.

The smile that pulls at his mouth is automatic and only for her as he angles his head to greet her.

Sakura slips beside him in the booth, fingers leaving his hair. She smiles back, but there is something in her eyes that tells him something is _wrong—_

“What’s with that look, Uchiha?” Ino pries as she wraps her arms around Suigetsu from behind. The blonde leans forward to prop her chin atop his head. It is without thought that Suigetsu turns his face into her shoulder.

Sasuke does not even realize he is frowning and opens his mouth to tell Ino to _mind her business_ , but Sakura beats him to it: “Isn’t it obvious? Suigetsu’s burnt the bar-be-cue. Again.”

Sure enough, the meat on the grill at the center of the table is charred.

Suigetsu chuckles. “Hey, no one’s forcing him to eat it!”

Sasuke gives her leg a squeeze beneath the table, silent gratitude. “Maybe not,” the Uchiha relents, “but you all will have just conveniently forgotten your wallets—“

Sakura allows her thighs to part just enough for his fingers to graze between them. A private touch, minimal but _purposeful._

“Glad to know our dynamics haven’t changed, Major General!” Genma cuts in, popping a particularly blackened piece of meat into his mouth. “So,” he wheedles, glancing at the blonde, “where’s the third musketeer?”

Ino pouts prettily. “Karin is on rotation. Where’s Shizune?”

“Probably off trying to find us a play-thing,” Genma says too loudly and earning horrified expressions from the occupants at the nearest table.

Green eyes sweep to Sasuke momentarily—a challenge—before landing on Genma. “Speaking of Shizune,” Sakura opens, leaning forward in earnest, “when can we expect little Shiranui brats?”

The brunet snorts. “The day Kakashi finally honors the bet he lost and goes on that date with Iruka.”

“Hey now,” the Copy-Nin (to everyone’s amusement) falters, “I never _agreed_ to a bet—“

“Oh, now that you’ve lost you’re trying to get out on a technicality?” Suigetsu challenges.

Sasuke—fingers traveling up her thigh, massaging the muscle—scoffs. “No one made you do the 100 meter dash against Gai. The fact that you participated is, in and of itself, agreement.”

“You weren’t even there,” Kakashi quips, single eye narrowing on the genin he once trained.

Sasuke shrugs, the epitome of nonchalance. “News travels,” he says as his hand disappears beneath Sakura’s apron, fingers teasing at the hem of her shorts. Beneath his ministrations, her thigh tenses.

“Speaking of news,” Suigetsu says with a shit-eating grin, “are congratulations in order yet or what?”

Sakura frowns. “Congratulations? For what?”

“Aren’t you two engaged?” he elaborates, pointing his chopsticks their way.

Sakura’s knee jerks, hitting the table (and Sasuke has to stifle his laugh, coughs into a fist). “What? No—”

“All that time alone, seeing the world, and not once did he pop the question?” Ino announces, scandalized.

Sakura, affronted: “I—we weren’t off on some romantic excursion.”

(“I’ve got letters that say otherwise, Forehead!”)

“We were _healing—”_

(“Sexual healing,” Genma and Suigetsu snicker in unison.)

“—those injured in the war and strengthening ties among the shinobi villages!” Sakura finishes, pitching her voice louder to drown out Genma and Suigetsu’s chorus.

She is red. She is _so red._

Sasuke suspects from Ino’s knowing grin and the heat creeping up the back of his neck that he is also very, very red and he _dares_ someone, anyone, to contradict the very tense young woman beside him. 

It is no secret what he and Sakura are to each other. Their relationship is fodder for gossip and speculation and that is precisely why he desires _some_ privacy. _Some_ discretion.

He and Sakura were a popular subject during the war, after the war (and it seems they are still a popular topic of conversation, even now)—every shift in their dynamic discussed at length amongst not only their peers but also complete strangers.

Would it kill people to let them have _something of their own?_

His glare is met first with silence, then:

“Did you say strengthening thighs?”

Sasuke glares at the usually quiet Copy-Nin. 

As the table bursts into laughter, he takes it back. 

Sasuke definitely did not miss _any of them._

.

“Something’s bothering you.”

Sakura peers up at him, offers that slanted grin he fell in love with even before he knew who she was, even before he knew how completely she had bewitched him behind a false name and false pretenses.

She gives their laced hands a squeeze. “Something’s bothering _you,”_ she returns.

They walk down a cobblestone path from the restaurant, traipse along the rebuilt Konoha roads towards a place they call home together. It is Sakura’s place, a nondescript apartment that does not befit anyone of her stature, but it is what she insists on and Sasuke is in no position to deny her what she says she wants.

He still cannot stay in the Uchiha District. No one presses him on why.

“I asked you first,” he says quietly. He cannot talk about Itachi, cannot talk about it, cannot think about it, when there is nothing he can do but _wait._

Sakura sighs, the sound is both sweet and melancholy. “You know Yui,” she opens, tossing a loose plait over her shoulder.

Even now, dark eyes are trained on her face, her profile. She glows under the moonlight, does she even realize? Her hair is still lavender beneath it, she still smells of sage and rain. He cannot look away, if he does he is afraid fire and blood will consume his thoughts. 

“She’s in labor,” Sasuke says. He has somehow mastered walking while _staring at her._

(Sakura has long since given up trying to get him to pay attention to where he’s heading.

_“Reasons you are wasting your breath” he had argued back one day when she told him, for the umpteenth time, to watch where he was going. “One: shinobi,” Sasuke announced, pointing at himself. “And two: we’re holding hands. You’re leading the way.” He lifted their joined hands for emphasis. “You’re not going to let me walk into anything.”_

_Sakura rolled her eyes and muttered. “Wanna bet?”_

She has yet to disappoint him in that regard.)

The medic nods, absently chewing her thumbnail. A habit, he has concluded, that she picked up from her mentor. 

“She…” Sakura pauses and the way her brow crumples in thought makes Sasuke’s mouth run dry. He reminds himself to _focus._ “...she had a bit of an episode today.”

“An episode?” Sasuke hedges, tracing and retracing her profile beneath the street lamps.

And then she stops walking, turns to him, and he is weak in face of those _eyes_. “What do you know about Otsutsuki Indra?”

 _That_ pulls him from admiring her. Sasuke blinks. “Indra—?”

“Haruno-hime!”

The pair turn to see a porcelain monkey staring back.

“You are needed at the hospital at once,” the Anbu announces. “Hokage’s orders.”

* * *

Sakura sees a pale body on the operating table.

Dark hair and _too much blood._

(Hasn’t she seen this before? Didn’t she leave the war behind?)

She has just enough time to notice the faded black swirl on his arm (and it hurts, she realizes, because she has not seen that tattoo on a tattered and broken body since—) before Tsunade looks up from her work. “His organs are failing rapidly. I need you to keep him stable,” she barks.

Sakura does not hesitate—“Understood, Tsunade-sama.”—already tugging on clean gloves as she approaches the patient.

It is hours later before they finally cease. 

Green fizzles out. The medics are worn and slump over the table in exhaustion.

The man on the table sleeps.

* * *

Days later he comes-to and demands to speak to the hokage.

The nurses call for Tsunade and she arrives decked out in her hokage gear, glares at the Anbu she has saved.

When he asks for Danzo she tells him with neither pity nor tact: “Danzo is dead. I am the Rokudaime.”

The patient blinks once, twice, though appears unperturbed. Before he can reply, the door to his room swings open.

Sakura sweeps in, Sasuke close behind her—

“Small Fry.”

Sasuke freezes, dark eyes assessing a face he has not seen since he was fourteen. “Long time no see,” he greets, “Sai.”

.

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> marcid **;** _weathered, incredibly exhausted_
> 
> .
> 
> (yes, sai calls sasuke Small Fry. you can thank Agentxyz for giving me the idea of sai using a nickname for him. because this is sai. _come. on._ )
> 
> while you’re here, lemme go ahead and shamelessly plug my other sasusaku fic that is being posted much quicker—[Operation: Nightingale](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29174685/chapters/71626281). post-canon sakura-pretending-not-to-be-sakura and sasuke-not-knowing-it’s-her because i’m apparently a one-trick pony.


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